Tag: Total Film

The latest issue of UK magazine Total Film comes with 100 different covers, each featuring one of their 100 Greatest Movie Characters. Sugar Kane, the adorable ditz played by Marilyn in Some Like It Hot, is ranked at #49 – so if you’re hunting for this rare gem, good luck! (Sugar also ranked 10th among the magazine’s top 100 female characters back in 2011, while Marilyn was featured in a Classic Film special edition earlier this year.)

A four-page spread is devoted to Marilyn in Classic Film: Your Essential Guide to Retro Cinema, a one-off special from UK magazine Total Film. “Though she may be plastered on everything from commemorative plates to clothes, Monroe is worth checking out on celluloid,” the article begins. “An underrated comedienne, a seductive on-screen femme fatale and a mesmerising star, she left an indelible impression on cinema and popular culture. Miss Monroe, we salute you!”

Released last month, you can still buy it at good newsagents or online (I found it here.) The large-format edition looks back at more than a century of movie history, although the focus is mainly on the 1950s onwards. There are some interesting quotes about Marilyn from her directors and co-stars, as well as more recent acolytes like Michelle Williams and Naomi Watts. Unfortunately, two of the quotes attributed to Marilyn are fake – can you spot them?

Sugar Kane, as played by Marilyn in Some Like it Hot, ranks 10th in Total Film‘s list of the 100 Greatest Female Characters. (Ellen Ripley of Alien is the overall winner.)

“Sugar Kane Kowalczyk

The Character: How to torment two guys in drag who need to keep their cover intact? A girl so sweet you can’t help liking her … and sexy as hell singing ‘I Wanna Be Loved By You’ in a diaphanous gown. Some Like It Hot, indeed.

The Actress: Billy Wilder had suffered agonies while filming The Seven Year Itch trying to get Marilyn Monroe to remember her lines. But he still knew the effort of hiring Hollywood’s biggest star was worth it.

The Performance: Monroe famously studied Method acting during the late 1950s, something that made her the butt of cruel Hollywood jokes. But she mined her troubled personal life to add a tangible air of sadness to counterpoint her exquisite comic timing.”